Book description
Simon Yates, author of Against the Wall, takes us back to his
early years as a climber - the escapades and excitement of a young
life lived on the edge and for the moment, when experience was
all-important and dramatic achievements and failures came as naturally
as the hair-raising risks themselves.
A mountaineering travelogue of dazzling variety, The Flame of
Adventure moves from the camaraderie of deprived Russian
climbers in the little-known peaks in the Tien Shan to the awesome
experience of the North Face of the Eiger, from a rumbustious
motorbike ride across Australia with a psychotic lorry driver. We meet
a remarkable gallery of climbers, from Doug Scott to Joe Simpson, and,
when not exploring high mountains, we enter the bizarre world of rope
access workers: mavericks balancing high above building sites on the
London skyline.
Simon Yates has climbed extensively in the Himalayas and the Andes,
and travelled through India, Kazakhstan and Australia. His first book,
Against the Wall
, was runner-up for the Boardman Tasker Award for mountain literature.
